'Small-World-Ness': a Quantitative Method for Determining Canonical Network Equivalence
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This is a repository copy of Network 'small-world-ness': a quantitative method for determining canonical network equivalence. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/10308/ Article: Humphries, M.D. and Gurney, K. (2008) Network 'small-world-ness': a quantitative method for determining canonical network equivalence. Plos One, 3 (4). Art No.e0002051. ISSN 1932-6203 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002051 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Network ‘Small-World-Ness’: A Quantitative Method for Determining Canonical Network Equivalence Mark D. Humphries*, Kevin Gurney Adaptive Behaviour Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom Abstract Background: Many technological, biological, social, and information networks fall into the broad class of ‘small-world’ networks: they have tightly interconnected clusters of nodes, and a shortest mean path length that is similar to a matched random graph (same number of nodes and edges). This semi-quantitative definition leads to a categorical distinction (‘small/not-small’) rather than a quantitative, continuous grading of networks, and can lead to uncertainty about a network’s small-world status. Moreover, systems described by small-world networks are often studied using an equivalent canonical network model – the Watts-Strogatz (WS) model. However, the process of establishing an equivalent WS model is imprecise and there is a pressing need to discover ways in which this equivalence may be quantified. Methodology/Principal Findings: We defined a precise measure of ‘small-world-ness’ S based on the trade off between high local clustering and short path length. A network is now deemed a ‘small-world’ if S.1 - an assertion which may be tested statistically. We then examined the behavior of S on a large data-set of real-world systems. We found that all these systems were linked by a linear relationship between their S values and the network size n. Moreover, we show a method for assigning a unique Watts-Strogatz (WS) model to any real-world network, and show analytically that the WS models associated with our sample of networks also show linearity between S and n. Linearity between S and n is not, however, inevitable, and neither is S maximal for an arbitrary network of given size. Linearity may, however, be explained by a common limiting growth process. Conclusions/Significance: We have shown how the notion of a small-world network may be quantified. Several key properties of the metric are described and the use of WS canonical models is placed on a more secure footing. Citation: Humphries MD, Gurney K (2008) Network ‘Small-World-Ness’: A Quantitative Method for Determining Canonical Network Equivalence. PLoS ONE 3(4): e0002051. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002051 Editor: Olaf Sporns, Indiana University, United States of America Received November 21, 2007; Accepted March 16, 2008; Published April 30, 2008 Copyright: ß 2008 Humphries, Gurney. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: MDH acknowledges support by the EU Framework 6 IST-027819-IP (ICEA) project. KG acknowledges the support of EPSRC grant EP/C516303/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected] Introduction However, the existing ‘small-world’ definition is a categorical one, and breaks the continuum of network topologies into the Networks are widely used to both represent real-world systems three classes of regular, random, and small-world networks, with for topological study [1] and as a substrate for modeling their the latter being the broadest. It is unclear to what extent the real- dynamics [2]. Many real technological, biological, social, and world systems in the small-world class have common network information networks fall into the broad class of ‘small-world’ properties and to what specific point in the ‘‘middle-ground’’ networks [3], a middle ground between regular and random (between random and regular) a network generating model must networks: they have high local clustering of elements, like regular be tuned to genuinely capture the topology of such systems. Here networks, but also short path lengths between elements, like we explore a continuous, quantitative, measure of ‘small-world- random networks. Membership of the ‘small-world’ network class ness’, with the aim of overcoming these inadequacies in the also implies that the corresponding systems have dynamic current theory of small-world networks. properties different from those of equivalent random or regular networks [3–7]. Network formalism One popular method for studying small-world networks is to use When describing a real-world system as a network, each an equivalent network model to generate other similar instances of element of the system is represented by a vertex or node, and the class of systems under study. Such generating models may also relationships or interactions between elements are represented by possess analytic properties that, we assume, may be extrapolated to edges between nodes. Two nodes are said to be neighbors if they the target system. One canonical model used as a candidate for are connected by an edge, and the degree ki of node i is the number network equivalence is the original Watts-Strogatz (WS) model, of neighbors it has. The minimum path length between two nodes is which has been used as a substrate for studying dynamics in the the minimum number of edges that must be traversed to get from diverse fields of ecology [8], economics [9,10], epidemiology one node to the other. The mean value of the minimum path [11,12], and neuroscience [13]. length over all node pairs will be denoted by L. PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 April 2008 | Volume 3 | Issue 4 | e0002051 Network ‘Small-World-Ness’ A key concept in defining small-worlds networks is that of The categorical definition of small-world network above implies $ D& D. ‘clustering’ which measures the extent to which the neighbors of a lg 1 and cg 1, which, in turn, gives S 1. We can, therefore, node are also interconnected. Watts and Strogatz [3] defined the now make a quantitative categorical definition of a ‘small-world’ ws clustering coefficient ci of node i by network Definition 2. A network is said to be a small-world network if 2E SD.1 ws~ i ci 1 ws ki ki{1 ð Þ A similar definition may also be given with respect to S . ðÞ However, notwithstanding the new categorical definition, we where Ei is the number of edges between the neighbors of i. The wish to emphasize here the utility of using a continuously graded ws ws clustering coefficient of the network C is then the mean of ci notion of small-world-ness. We go on, therefore, to analyze the over all nodes. An alternative definition of network clustering in properties of the new metrics, and apply them to real-world data common use [14], based on transitivity, is expressed by for the first time (in [16] we originally proposed this metric as a tool for comparing theoretical neuroanatomy models; its subse- 3|number of triangles quent adoption by others [17,18,19] motivated us to consider its CD~ , 2 theoretical and empirical applications as a universal metric). number of paths of length 2 ð Þ where a ‘triangle’ is a set of three nodes in which each contacts the Results other two. Both capture intuitive notions of clustering but, though often in good agreement, values for Cws and CD can differ by an New metrics behave as required with the Watts-Strogatz order of magnitude for some networks. We consider mainly CD model D here, but report where using Cws leads to different results. We first checked that the metric S behaves as required on the A network G with n nodes and m edges is a small-world network canonical Watts-Strogatz (WS) model of small-world generation [3] if it has a similar path length but greater clustering of nodes [3]. The WS model begins with a ring of n nodes, each node than an equivalent Erdo¨s-Re´nyi (E–R) random graph [15] with connected to its nearest neighbors out to some range K. Each edge the same m and n (an E–R graph is constructed by uniquely in turn is ‘re-wired’ to a new target node with probability p assigning each edge to a node pair with uniform probability). More (Figure 1A). Values of p = 0 and p = 1 give regular and random D networks, respectively, with intermediate p values resulting in formally, let Lg be the mean shortest path length of G and Cg its D ‘small-world’ networks that share properties of both provided that clustering coefficient using (2).